A Contemporary War Poet

Students of British literature and of English literature (long may they thrive!) will know that there is a long tradition of poetry inspired by the experience of war. Wilfred Owen, Seigfried Sassoon and Keith Douglas are examples from the two World Wars.

Today in the UK Department of Defence news round up I was pleased to discover a contemporary successor to Owen et al, Lt. Col. J.B. Brown, a Logistics Officer currently commanding the British Army's 7 Transport Regiment Royal Logistic Corps, seen below in this marvellous Colville-esque photo taken in Iraq:




A DOD background piece on LCol Brown can be found here. I had a quick glance at some of Brown's poems posted online by the Sunday Times and they are powerful and of a high literary quality. See them here.

Speaking of Alex Colville, war artists, like war poets, are still at work as well. The UK DOD has also posted a small gallery of British artist Arabella Dorman's paintings of UK soldiers in Iraq - see her work here here, as well as a DOD backgrounder on her work here.